MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Saudi-Yemen Conflict
Interview
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HAYES: Joining me now, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont. And let me just start on the question of Putin congratulations, a bunch of your colleagues have put out strong statements saying that they not approve of the president congratulating Vladimir Putin. Your thoughts on that.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: Look, it should be clear to everybody that we have a president with a strong authoritarian personality. He likes people like Putin, like Xi in China, the Duterte in the Philippines. He hosted today the leader of Saudi Arabia, a monarchy which has nothing close to elections. That is who he is. And what frightens me is not only his respect and adoration for tyrants all over the world, but his disrespect for democracy in our own country in terms of voter suppression, in terms of gerrymandering, in terms of his attacks on the media.
So, that`s who we have as a president. Our job is to stand together and say hey, Mr. Trump, you know what, in this country, we believe in Democracy, not authoritarianism.
HAYES: Just the specific question about -- in your view, should he have congratulated Putin?
SANDERS: Of course not.
HAYES: No, OK.
SANDERS: How do you do that? You got a sham election. Putin`s major opponent was barred from running. Putin controls the media. They stuff ballot boxes. What kind of election is that?
HAYES: You have -- there is an omnibus, which is sort of flying under the radar right now and it is going to have to happen to fund the government. And one thing that some people have been talking, about and I want to talk about a few aspects of it, is whether there should be something attached to it to protect Robert Mueller. And I want to show you Mitch McConnell`s view on that and get your reaction. Here is what Mitch McConnell had to had to say.
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HAYES: What do you think of that?
SANDERS: Well, you know, we have an unpredictable president who acts often in irrational ways. I hope that McConnell is right, but to my mind, we have got to do everything possible to make it clear that if Trump forces Mueller out, this is in fact an impeachable offense, it is not acceptable.
And I`m glad to hear that a few Republicans, not Senator McConnell, but some others, have made that same point.
HAYES: You had a piece of legislation today and it was voted for down today 55-44 on the same day that Mohammed bin Salman of -- the Saudi prince -- was in town that would have essentially required congressional authorization to aid sought Saudi Arabia and its war in Yemen.
Why is that something that you view is important?
SANDERS: Chris, take a deep breath and think about modern American history. And if you think about the two worst foreign policy blunders in our modern history, they are the war in Vietnam where the Johnson administration used the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to suck America into that Vietnam quagmire, it just so happened that that Gulf of Tonkin incident turned out to be a lie, and Johnson and McNamara, his secretary of defense, essentially lied to congress and lied to the American people, and an entire generation of young people suffered terribly as a result of that war.
Then, you think 15 years ago today, the war in Iraq where we had a Republican president George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, vice president, lying to the American people about Saddam Hussein colluding with Osama bin Laden, involved in 9/11, not true, working on weapons of mass destruction not true. We went into that war, which destabilized the Middle East, resulted in hundreds of thousands of people there dying, displacement of millions of people, 4,400 of our own young men and women dying in that war.
What`s the commonality of those two wars? Congress did not play the constitutional role that is supposed to. Article I, section 8 says it is congress, not the president, who declares war. We have advocated that responsibility. Right now in Yemen, we have an unbelievable humanitarian disaster. A million people with cholera, 40,000 wounded, 10,000 dead, millions of people being displaced, congress has got to determine whether or not our military plays a role in that war. We have not done that and that`s what I try to do today.
HAYES: The argument of the Trump administration and those who voted against this I think is that the U.S. has an interest in essentially helping the Saudis defeat the insurgence in Yemen and aid the blockade, which as you said and all organizations have said has caused tremendous, almost unfathomable humanitarian crisis. Do you think they`re wrong about that?
SANDERS: Yeah, I do think they are wrong. But more importantly, if you think the U.S. aiding Saudi Arabia in the destruction and what`s going on in Yemen is a good idea, then vote for it. What happened today is a motion to table our resolution was passed. So the congress didn`t even have the guts to vote up or down or whether they thought it was a good idea for the U.S. to be supporting Saudi Arabia.
So bottom line here is we cannot continue to give presidents Democratic, Republican, whatever, carte blanche to do what they want militarily. The constitution is very clear. Congress has got to accept its responsibility. If you want to vote for the war in Yemen, vote for the war in Yemen, but don`t duck the issue.
HAYES: All right, Senator Bernie Sanders, thanks for being with me. I appreciate it.
SANDERS: Thank you.
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